It is a fascinating part of the country, the Thuringian chain of cities. In the west, the Lutherstadt of Erfurt with its medieval core and its somewhat different Art Nouveau “bacon belt”; in the east, Jena, the heart of German idealism and German Romanticism in equal measure; in its midst Weimar, in turn the center of German classical music, music academies, the First Republic, the Bauhaus — but also: Nietzsche's place of death.

Naumburg is located not far from this chain of cities, which is significant in terms of intellectual history, in the idyllic Saale-Unstrut Delta. In this beautiful city, Nietzsche spent his schooling and those years of 'spiritual absentence' in which he was cared for by his mother. He returned here again and again — throughout his life — from his extensive hikes in Switzerland and Italy. Here, in Weingarten 18, where Nietzsche's mother lived from 1858, there is still the Nietzsche House today, in which a new permanent exhibition presents the philosopher's thinking and biography in an unusually aesthetic way. Five extended audio tracks — in German or English — lead to 1, 2, 3... Nietzsche the guests through nine rooms, sometimes cramped, across two floors. Children are just as much thought of as those who consider Nietzsche's closeness to animals and things to be fundamental; for man is not a backworld, not a transcendental appendage, but an earthly, local and thus a reality that acts both physically and materially.

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In the audio track of the exhibition on Nietzsche's life, in addition to his appointment at the age of 24 to a professorship in Basel (even before he received his doctorate) and his extended years of wandering after early retirement due to his health condition, his “Turin experience” is particularly fascinating. In this, according to tradition, he threw himself around the neck of a tormented horse as if protective, which, according to the official story, marks the beginning of his “madness.” Madness is still conveyed so sensually; the anecdote acts as evidence against doctrine for all those who are open to him: From the will to the power of the tormenting, from the compassionate of the rulers, the person Nietzsche was apparently less pleased than his teaching would suggest. Yes, it seems that he was as repulsed by “blond beasts” and their brutal “superhumanity.” Although the museum does not suggest this conclusion, it treats Nietzsche's animal epiphany with appropriate sympathy.

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The new permanent exhibition also demonstrates a contemporary sense of taste. But Nietzsche was not a Untimely? Was he not a despiser of taste and fashion? In any case, text boards have 1, 2, 3... Nietzsche Hardly any and all the more gimmicks, which in a certain sense fit into Naumburg's cityscape during post-reunification times — where only the facades are still colorful. In this way, the museum's presentation reflects the museum environment, although the early Nietzsche would certainly not have been pleased with this. It also provides visitors with superficial and uncritical knowledge rather than profound or new knowledge. In terms of form and content, the addressees therefore appear to be more confessors than experts of Nietzsche — more informed by popular culture than by philosophical studies. On the other hand, it provides important corrections to tried and tested prejudices, especially for these addressees.

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For example, she explains that Nietzsche just none He was a nihilist (but, at least according to his own claim, an anti-nihilist) and that his quip “God is dead” is to be understood more complex (yes, ultimately different) than as a summing up of one-dimensional modern faith. Hitting in the same notch but cliching on his part, seems to be the main enemy of 1, 2, 3... Nietzsche to be the Habermash problematization of the Nietzschean levelling of the difference between philosophy and literature. This problematization, however, fails on its part to Habermas' over-identify Nietzsche with post-structuralism (from Philosophical discourse of modernity known) to question what could have opened paths both beyond the hegel of the Federal Republic of Habermas and across the neoconservatives of the new spirit of capitalism — the post-structuralists.

Accordingly, it also remains questionable whether, in the case of Nietzsche, as the exhibition suggests, from terms — in terms of “will to power” or “eternal return” — although the selection of these in the museum rooms is quite convincing. After all, a wanderer philosophized here with his shadows and a hammer, not a systematist with an encyclopedia and dialectical method. Yet the Nietzsche-curious person in 1, 2, 3... not only about his countermethod of genealogy and aesthetics (appearances come before consciousness!) but also about today — not least politically — central concepts such as “resentment” or “nihilism.” The latter, however, is questionably discussed as “influenced by Nietzsche” and as a mere description of the present tense of the late 19th century, instead of bringing it beyond its Russian conditions of origin — and with Nietzsche — into a dual connection with religion and scientism that would continue to this day.

Last but not least, it is unlikely to convince Nietzschekenner to find nothing but a defense of “diversity” in his “Earth Government,” which was intended to instigate slavery, feudality and inequality (as the cynical post-critic Sloterdijk recalled), such as 1, 2, 3... suggests that Nietzsche, of all people, was the first left-liberal. The defense of “faraway love”, on the other hand, which excludes all nationalism and some anti-Semitism (although unfortunately hardly any racism in Nietzsche's case), as den Highlighting Nietzsche's essential anti-essentialist contribution during the period of neo-chauvinism is definitely thanks to the new exhibition in the Nietzschehaus.

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Regardless of criticism, offers 1, 2, 3... gives visitors an enjoyable, light, entertaining and, as it were, educational afternoon, even on weekdays when the museum is open from 2 pm to 5 pm (except Mondays). It should be a suitable period of time to listen to the various audio tracks and — along their — to experience various acoustically conveyed experiences of the same haptically retrievable spaces. Even the new exhibition does not completely resist the temptation to romanticize or heroize Nietzsche; people who have been reading Nietzsche for years and decades are still likely to get a whole lot closer to the person who wrote about Superman through them. It is precisely this bringing the people Nietzsche is most grateful in our era of hegemonic human self-abolition, which is being tried ideologically to be overtaken ahead of time by anti-, trans- and post-humanist avant-gardes. In any case, Nietzsche was still a person who only lacked the goal and thus the species, but not humanity when it came to the suffering of an animal.

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In the best sense of the word, could 1, 2, 3... In this respect, they contribute to reopening places such as Naumburg, Jena and Weimar, figures such as Nietzsche, Hegel and Goethe in terms of intellectual history: because Nietzsche's proteleological question of the self-determined goal of man, the ideal of authenticity of German Romanticism, the rational society of German idealism and the adequate order of good life (German classical music) belong together beyond all bourgeois resentments of education — especially But: beyond all Germanness.

Link to the Nietzsche House website with further information.

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Information about the pictures

All images in this article are taken by the author unless otherwise stated.

Article image: Front of the Nietzsche House in Naumburg